Nuclear and thermal feasibility of lithium-loaded high temperature gas-cooled reactor for tritium production for fusion reactors

Goto, Minoru; Okumura, Keisuke; Nakagawa, Shigeaki; Inaba, Yoshitomo; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Nakaya, Hiroyuki*; Katayama, Kazunari*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 136(Part A), p.357 - 361, 2018/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2018.02.029

A High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) is proposed as a tritium production device, which has the potential to produce a large amount of tritium using Li(n,)T reaction. In the HTGR design, generally, boron is loaded into the core as a burnable poison to suppress excess reactivity. In this study, lithium is loaded into the HTGR core instead of boron and is used as a burnable poison aiming to produce thermal energy and tritium simultaneously. The nuclear characteristics and the fuel temperature were calculated to confirm the feasibility of the lithium-loaded HTGR. It was shown that the calculation results satisfied the design requirements and hence the feasibility was confirmed for the lithium-loaded HTGR, which produce thermal energy and tritium.

Impact hammer test of ITER blanket remote handling system

Noguchi, Yuto; Maruyama, Takahito; Ueno, Kenichi; Komai, Masafumi; Takeda, Nobukazu; Kakudate, Satoshi

Fusion Engineering and Design, 109-111(Part B), p.1291 - 1295, 2016/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.12.040

This paper reports the impact hammer test of the full-scale mock-up of ITER Blanket Remote Handling system (BRHS). Since the BRHS, which is composed of the articulated rail and the vehicle manipulator which travels on the rail deployed in the vacuum vessel, is subjected to the floor response spectrum with 14 G peak at 8 Hz, evaluation of dynamic response of the system is of essential importance. Recently impact hammer testing on the full-scale mock-up of the BRHS was carried out to verify the finite element method seismic analysis and to experimentally obtain the damping ratio of the system. The results showed that the mock-up has a vertical major natural mode with a natural frequency of 7.5 Hz and a damping ratio of 0.5%. While higher structural damping ratios is predicted in a high amplitude excitation such as major earthquake, it was confirmed that the experimental natural major frequencies are in agreement with the major frequencies obtained by elastic dynamic analysis.

Progress of JT-60SA Project; EU-JA joint efforts for assembly and fabrication of superconducting tokamak facilities and its research planning

Shirai, Hiroshi; Barabaschi, P.*; Kamada, Yutaka; JT-60SA Team

Fusion Engineering and Design, 109-111(Part B), p.1701 - 1708, 2016/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.10.026

The JT-60SA Project has shown steady progress toward the first plasma in 2019. JT-60SA is a superconducting tokamak designed to operate in the break-even conditions for a long pulse duration with a maximum plasma current of 5.5 MA. Design and fabrication of JT-60SA components shared by EU and Japan started in 2007. Assembly in the torus hall started in January 2013, and welding work of the vacuum vessel sectors is currently on going on the cryostat base. Other components such as TF coils, PF coils, power supplies, cryogenic system, cryostat vessel, thermal shields and so forth were or are being delivered to Naka site for installation, assembly and commissioning. This paper gives technical progress on fabrication, installation and assembly of tokamak components and ancillary systems, as well as progress of JT-60SA Research Plan being developed jointly by EU and Japanese fusion communities.

Design concept of conducting shell and in-vessel components suitable for plasma vertical stability and remote maintenance scheme in DEMO reactor

Uto, Hiroyasu; Takase, Haruhiko; Sakamoto, Yoshiteru; Tobita, Kenji; Mori, Kazuo; Kudo, Tatsuya; Someya, Yoji; Asakura, Nobuyuki; Hoshino, Kazuo; Nakamura, Makoto; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 103, p.93 - 97, 2016/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.12.048

Conceptual design of in-vessel component including conducting shell has been investigated in Broader Approach (BA) DEMO design activities, in order to propose feasible DEMO reactor from plasma vertical stability and engineering viewpoint. The conducting shell for the plasma vertical stability will be incorporated behind blanket module, while the location must be close to the plasma surface as possible for the plasma stabilization. We evaluated dependence of the plasma vertical stability on the conducing shell parameters by using a 3-dimensional eddy current analysis code (EDDYCAL). The calculation results showed that the conducting shell requires more than 0.01 m thickness of Cu-alloy on DEMO. On the other hand, the electromagnetic force at the plasma disruption is a few times larger than no conducting shell case because of larger eddy current on conducting shell. The engineering design issues of in-vessel components for plasma vertical stability are presented.

Metallurgical analysis of lithium test assembly operated for 1200 h

Furukawa, Tomohiro; Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Yamaoka, Nobuo*; Hoashi, Eiji*; Suzuki, Sachiko*; Horiike, Hiroshi*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(7-8), p.1674 - 1678, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.02.043

One key issue in the development of the IFMIF is the corrosion/erosion of the lithium components. At Osaka University, lithium free-surface flow experiments to verify the design of the IFMIF target have been carried out, and the test assembly was operated in high-speed lithium flow for 1200 hours at 300 C. Since the test assembly is important to understand the corrosion/erosion behavior as the demonstration experimental data, the metallurgical analysis was been performed. Slight irregularities which were trace of high-speed lithium flow were observed at the tip of the nozzle. On the other hand, mottled unevenness with many micro-cracks of a few micrometer depths was observed at the inlet of the nozzle, whose velocity ratio was 0.1-0.4 as compared with the nozzle tip. It was estimated that the phenomena was caused by carburizing from liquid lithium, and it was newly proven that carbon control in lithium was also important for corrosion / erosion protection of the IFMIF components.

R&D status on water cooled ceramic breeder blanket technology

Enoeda, Mikio; Tanigawa, Hisashi; Hirose, Takanori; Nakajima, Motoki; Sato, Satoshi; Ochiai, Kentaro; Konno, Chikara; Kawamura, Yoshinori; Hayashi, Takumi; Yamanishi, Toshihiko; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(7-8), p.1131 - 1136, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.01.035

The development of a Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder (WCCB) Test Blanket Module (TBM) is being performed as one of the most important steps toward DEMO blanket in Japan. Regarding the fabrication technology development using F82H, the fabrication of a real scale mockup of the back wall of TBM was completed. Also the assembling of the complete box structure of the TBM mockup and planning of the pressurization testing was studied. The development of advanced breeder and multiplier pebbles for higher chemical stability was performed for future DEMO blanket application. From the view point of TBM test result evaluation and DEMO blanket performance design, the development of the blanket tritium simulation technology, investigation of the TBM neutronics measurement technology and the evaluation of tritium production and recovery test using D-T neutron in the Fusion Neutronics Source (FNS) facility has been performed.

Investigation on degradation mechanism of ion exchange membrane immersed in highly concentrated tritiated water under the Broader Approach activities

Iwai, Yasunori; Sato, Katsumi; Yamanishi, Toshihiko

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(7-8), p.1534 - 1538, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.02.018

The ion exchange membrane such as Nafion is a key material for electrolysis cells of the Water Detritiation System. Long-term exposure of Nafion ion exchange membrane into 1.3810Bq/kg of tritiated water was conducted at room temperature for up to 2 years. The ionic conductivity of Nafion ion exchange membrane after immersed in tritiated water was changed. The change in color of membrane from colorless to yellowish was caused by active radical reactions. Infrared Fourier transform spectrum of the membrane immersed in tritiated water revealed a small peak for bending vibration of C-H situated at 1437 cm demonstrating the formation of hydrophobic functional group in the membrane. The high-resolution solid state F NMR spectrum of the membrane after immersed in tritiated water was similar to that of membrane irradiated with -rays. From the F NMR spectrum, any distinctive degradation in the membrane structure by interaction with tritium was not measured.

Robot vision system R&D for ITER blanket remote-handling system

Maruyama, Takahito; Aburadani, Atsushi; Takeda, Nobukazu; Kakudate, Satoshi; Nakahira, Masataka; Tesini, A.*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(9-10), p.2404 - 2408, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.01.004

Gamma-ray dose analysis for ITER JA WCCB-TBM

Sato, Satoshi; Tanigawa, Hisashi; Hirose, Takanori; Enoeda, Mikio; Ochiai, Kentaro; Konno, Chikara

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(9-10), p.1984 - 1988, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2013.12.015

In order to evaluate nuclear properties of the ITER JA WCCB-TBM (Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder Test Blanket Module) and ensure that the design conforms to the nuclear regulation for licensing, nuclear analyses have been performed for the WCCB-TBM including flame, shield, pipe-forest, bio-shield and AEU (Ancillary Equipment Unit). Nuclear analyses are performed with the Monte Carlo code MCNP5.14, activation code ACT-4 and Fusion Evaluated Nuclear Data Library FENDL-2.1. MCNP geometry input data of the TBM is created from CAD data with the automatic conversion code GEOMIT, and other geometry input data is created by manually. By adopting the dog-leg gaps, decay -ray dose rate can be drastically reduced and hands-on access is possible for shield. Detailed calculation results will be presented in this symposium.

Evaluation of applicability of laser-based distance meter to measure Li-jet thickness for IFMIF/EVEDA project

Kanemura, Takuji; Kondo, Hiroo; Hoashi, Eiji*; Suzuki, Sachiko*; Yamaoka, Nobuo*; Horiike, Hiroshi*; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Wakai, Eiichi

Fusion Engineering and Design, 89(7-8), p.1642 - 1647, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.03.037

In the Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities (EVEDA) of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), a device to measure thickness variation of a high-speed (15 m/s) liquid lithium (Li) jet must be developed. The required measurement precision is 0.1 mm. For this purpose, we newly focused on a laser-based distance meter. This paper describes the result of an applicability test of the new sensor conducted in the Osaka University Li Loop. In the experiment, thickness variation of a Li jet (10 mm in thickness) was measured at the sampling frequency of 500 kHz in the velocity range of 10 to 15 m/s at the Li temperature of 573 K under argon atmosphere of 0.12 MPa. To evaluate the applicability of the device, the measurement precision of the Li level was evaluated. As a result, the precision was approximately 9 m. Thus, we concluded that the laser-based distance meter is applicable to the measurement of the Li target thickness.